Traditionally, motion pictures have been distributed to movie theaters in the form of multiple expensive and bulky film reels. In practice, for instance, a typical motion picture would be structured as a set of 3-5 large reels of film. Once the studio and post-production houses complete production of the motion picture, one or more distributors would deliver the set of reels by courier to each and every theater that will be showing the motion picture. At each theater, a projection mechanic would then splice the reels together and feed the film into a projector. Furthermore, in typical practice, a given set of film reels lasts for only a limited number of showings before the film gets worn and is then discarded or replaced. Consequently, after a certain number of showings, a new set of the bulky and expensive film reels may need to be delivered by courier to the theater and again prepared for showing. Overall, the process of distributing motion pictures to theaters has been expensive and cumbersome.
In recent years, significant advances have occurred in video technology. The advent of high definition television and digital video (e.g., digital cable and satellite), as well as new forms of digital video projection, has given consumers a taste for drastically improved video quality. Further, cable, satellite, and other network communications have ushered in a new era of video distribution.
Recognizing the expensive and burdensome nature of traditional motion picture delivery, the motion picture industry is currently transitioning from film cinema to digital cinema. In particular, rather than (or in addition to) producing and distributing a motion picture on a set of bulky film reels, many studios, post-production houses, and movie distribution organizations are beginning to produce and distribute motion pictures digitally.
In practice today, a digital motion picture is delivered to theaters in encrypted form on computer hard drives. In particular, the motion picture may be stored on a hard drive as a set of encrypted files (sometimes still called “reels”) each comprising a portion of the motion picture, and each theater may be equipped with a computer or media player to which the hard drive can be connected as well as a digital video projector (e.g. a DLP projector) suitable for projecting the video content onto a large theater screen. For a given motion picture, the distributor would thus deliver a copy of the hard drive to each theater that will be digitally presenting the motion picture. Further, each theater would be provided with decryption keys for decrypting the encrypted video files, to facilitate presentation for an allowed number of times or period of time for instance.
Beneficially, delivering motion pictures on hard drives rather than as traditional film reels can greatly reduce the costs and burden of the process, and presents numerous other advantages. From the production and distribution standpoint, the act of loading digital cinema onto multiple hard drives is much simpler and less expensive than producing multiple copies of a set of film reels. Further, a hard drive is much smaller and lighter weight than a set of film reels, and so courier delivery of the motion picture to theaters is far less expensive. Still further, through use of established and developing digital rights management techniques, digital cinema distributors can maintain control over the extent to which the digital cinema is used after distribution.
From the standpoint of theater owners, maintenance is greatly simplified. Once a hard drive containing a motion picture is connected with the theater presentation system, the presentation of the motion picture can be substantially or entirely automated, as can other aspects of motion picture management. Further, the theater owner benefits by not having to replace the motion picture after numerous showings, as the quality of digital cinema remains the same no matter how many times it is played. In addition, the theater owner benefits by not having to maintain sometimes archaic projection equipment. Other than the possibly substantial expense of initially equipping a theater for digital presentation, theater owners should also see greatly decreased cost and increased revenue by attracting consumers with higher quality video presentation.
The industry is also currently experimenting with delivering digital cinema content to theaters through satellite transmission. To do so, each theater would be equipped with one or more satellite dishes, and the motion picture distributor would work with satellite communication companies to arrange for transmission of the motion picture content to satellites and then down to the theaters, where the content would be stored for playout.
Several problems exist with satellite transmission of digital cinema, however. First, satellite transmission suffers from limited bandwidth, in some cases capping at approximately 45 megabits per second, which means that it can take a very long time to transmit a large motion picture file (on the order of 200 or 300 gigabytes) to a theater. Second, the satellite dishes that would be used for satellite transmission of digital cinema may be large 6 foot wide dishes, which can take up substantial physical space at the theater. In some cases, for instance, a digitally-equipped theater would need multiple such dishes to receive content from multiple distributors, through multiple satellite distribution systems. For example, the theater may need one dish for receiving pre-show content such as advertisements and previews from one distributor, another dish for receiving live broadcasts (e.g., concerts or the like), and another dish for receiving digital motion pictures. Still further, a given type of content may be distributed by multiple distributors, which could further increase the number of satellite dishes at each theater.
Consequently, an improvement is desired.